Letter to the EFF

[kiba]

I think the donations are one-time only. Nobody has pledged to donate per monthly.

[ichi]

If EFF had a bitcoin button, I'd donate 50 per month 

[NewLibertyStandard]

If EFF had a bitcoin button, I'd donate 50 per month 

Until the exchange rate hits what?

[kiba]

I took Ichi's version and modified it a little bit.



Dear Electronic Fronter Foundation, the Bitcoin community appreciates your ongoing efforts to protect Internet freedom. We hope to generally remain free of intervention, and would welcome your support.

The Bitcoin community comprises approximately N users and over 30 business enterprises employing a new open-source P2P cryptocurrency and monetary system called Bitcoins. The software for bitcoin is published under the MIT license. In addition to many other useful properties, Bitcoin has extremely low transaction fees, high divisibility, and is hard to produce and fake. These features make Bitcoin useful as a medium of exchange. As such, Bitcoin may become a threat to centralized monetary systems, which are typically backed by governments. The Bitcoin community knows that governments will defend their monetary monopolies, perhaps by suppressing the Bitcoin economy.

As a demonstration of our value, members of the Bitcoin community would like to donate some of our goods -- cryptocurrency bitcoins -- to you. In order to facilitate that process, we request that you add a bitcoin donation button to the EFF website.  That would involve setting up a Bitcoin node, which is quite straightforward. We estimate that EFF would receive approximately X bitcoins currently worth about Y USD. We note that, by accepting bitcoin donations, EFF might expand its support base (perhaps substantially).

[ichi]

If EFF had a bitcoin button, I'd donate 50 per month 

Until the exchange rate hits what?

Good point.  I'd say $0.50 or so per bitcoin.

[ichi]

I'm honored    And I have some questions.

Who will be sending this to the EFF, and how?  What email address?  Anonymous?

Also, "Bitcoin community" appears too many times, and there are still issues re "Bitcoin" vs "bitcoin".  "Bitcoins" at the top of the second paragraph doesn't work.  I'm too tired and cranky for another rewrite, however 

Putting on my pedant hat, I can't imagine that this will be a printed (or even PDFed) letter, given that it's coming from "the Bitcoin community".  If this will be simply an email, it should just start ...

The Bitcoin community appreciates ... [rest of body]

If it'll be a classic letter, the format should (of course) be ...

[Sender Address]

[Date]

Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street
San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA

To whom it may concern:

The Bitcoin community appreciates ... [rest of body]

Sincerely,
[Sender Name]

[kiba]

The Bitcoin community appreciates ... [rest of body]

I think it just sound better to greet the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Beside, the starter sentence feel "out of the blue".

[mizerydearia]

If classic letter, perhaps it would be interesting if Satoshi were to personally prepare the letter himself and to fancy it with Bitcoin-related art/imagery/symbolism and perhaps even have a Bitcoin sticker to seal the envelope. ^_^  That would be AMAZING! ... and definitely garnish some incentive, motivation and interest for the EFF to consider Bitcoin as a healthy establishment.

[mizerydearia]

I took Ichi's version and modified it a little bit.



Dear Electronic Fronter Foundation, the Bitcoin community appreciates your ongoing efforts to protect Internet freedom. We hope to generally remain free of intervention, and would welcome your support.

The Bitcoin community comprises approximately N users and over 30 business enterprises employing a new open-source P2P cryptocurrency and monetary system called Bitcoins. The software for bitcoin is published under the MIT license. In addition to many other useful properties, Bitcoin has extremely low transaction fees, high divisibility, and is hard to produce and fake. These features make Bitcoin useful as a medium of exchange. As such, Bitcoin may become a threat to centralized monetary systems, which are typically backed by governments. The Bitcoin community knows that governments will defend their monetary monopolies, perhaps by suppressing the Bitcoin economy.

As a demonstration of our value, members of the Bitcoin community would like to donate some of our goods -- cryptocurrency bitcoins -- to you. In order to facilitate that process, we request that you add a bitcoin donation button to the EFF website.  That would involve setting up a Bitcoin node, which is quite straightforward. We estimate that EFF would receive approximately X bitcoins currently worth about Y USD. We note that, by accepting bitcoin donations, EFF might expand its support base (perhaps substantially).

"Dear Electronic Fronter Foundation, the Bitcoin community appreciates your ongoing efforts to protect Internet freedom."
"Dear Electronic Fronter Foundation,

The Bitcoin community appreciates your ongoing efforts to protect Internet freedom."

"We hope to generally remain free of intervention"
humm...  http://onelook.com/?w=generally&ls=a  I'm not sure about "generally" or more importantly the sentence/message directly after the first sentence.  Perhaps simply:
"We hope to remain free of intervention and would welcome your support" <-- Note: no comma

"and is hard to produce and fake"
"and is difficult to produce and counterfeit"

[Anonymous]

I think the donations are one-time only. Nobody has pledged to donate per monthly.

First you need to create a client that does subscription payments .

[The Madhatter]

A super geeky way to do subscription payments is with the console client and cron.

If the EFF had a Bitcoin address I'd donate often.

[kiba]

A super geeky way to do subscription payments is with the console client and cron.

If the EFF had a Bitcoin address I'd donate often.

Only to forget! Your client need a regular donation mechanism.

[mizerydearia]

A super geeky way to do subscription payments is with the console client and cron.

If the EFF had a Bitcoin address I'd donate often.

Only to forget! Your client need a regular donation mechanism.

It is fairly simple to produce a client that uses the api/json

[fresno]

No conditional donations! No json! We're saying hello and giving our support to their program, not negotiating a contract.

I think our hardest task will be to define what Bitcoin is http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=815.msg9854#msg9854 I used to think that calling it a digital currency was a good idea, now I don't.

[kiba]

Letter upgrade, complete.

Dear Electronic Fronter Foundation,

The Bitcoin community appreciates your ongoing efforts to protect Internet freedom. We hope to remain free of intervention and would welcome your support

The Bitcoin community comprises approximately N users and over 30 business enterprises employing a new open-source P2P cryptocurrency and monetary system called Bitcoins. The software for bitcoin is published under the MIT license. In addition to many other useful properties, Bitcoin has extremely low transaction fees, high divisibility, and is difficult to produce and counterfeit. These features make Bitcoin useful as a medium of exchange. As such, Bitcoin may become a threat to centralized monetary systems, which are typically backed by governments. The Bitcoin community knows that governments will defend their monetary monopolies, perhaps by suppressing the Bitcoin economy.

Members of the Bitcoin community have expressed an interest in donating [cryptocurrency] bitcoins to you as a gesture of appreciation. In order to facilitate that process, we request that you add a bitcoin donation button to the EFF website.  That would involve setting up a Bitcoin node, which is quite straightforward. We estimate that EFF would receive approximately X bitcoins currently worth about Y USD. We note that, by accepting bitcoin donations, EFF might expand its support base (perhaps substantially).

[NewLibertyStandard]

I bet they'll smile when they come to check out the project and find this thread.

[ichi]

Thanks, kiba 

FWIW, I support dropping "cryptocurrency".  Bitcoin is what it is, and that's well-described elsewhere.

So, what are the current best estimates for N, X and Y?

[kiba]

Thanks, kiba  

FWIW, I support dropping "cryptocurrency".  Bitcoin is what it is, and that's well-described elsewhere.

So, what are the current best estimates for N, X and Y?

We have about 575 bitcoins, which translate to 37.72 dollars at the current exchange rate of 0.056.

Not everybody pledged a donation. Some of which probably won't be donated at all.

[ichi]

Are those pledges, or in an account?  I vaguely remember another thread.  Help?

How may Bitcoin clients are there currently?

[kiba]

Are those pledges, or in an account?  I vaguely remember another thread.  Help?

How may Bitcoin clients are there currently?

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=778.0